Premonitions
by Shortstakk7932
Summary: Hotch has a recurring dream that has a tendency to affect him substantially. What will happen when the events from the dream begin to come true? Mostly Hotch/OC-centric. Will be M Rated just to be safe (possible bad language..likely...and perhaps some sexual content later).
1. Chapter 1

**This is another story I've been brewing in my head for at least a couple of weeks. No worries, I'm sticking with my other story, "I'm Coming Home"….haven't put that one to bed yet, and I need to get it done…but this one kept nagging me to death. Let's see what happens with this bad boy, yeah?**

**And like always…I am the owner of practically nothing…only a little debt and my OC. **

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He woke up with a start, breathing hard, and sweat rolling down his face. He was a little disoriented. The dream had been so real. Again.

This was the third time this week alone that he had had that same dream; and every time he had it the details were so vivid…he always woke up feeling wonky. He always felt a little disoriented after; it was almost like whatever was happening in the dream was real life and waking up in his own bed, in his own apartment was the part that was make believe.

All he could ever remember about the dream was the woman darting out in front of his car from God knows where. In the dream he's travelling down the road, it's night time, it's been raining…he's going only a couple miles over the posted speed limit-no more than five miles over. He had been on the phone with his former sister-in-law confirming that his son would be staying at her house over the week-end; his son missed his cousins, it would give him a bit of time to catch up and play. Besides, if they were to catch a case over the next couple of days it would be insanely convenient for the boy to already be at the woman's house. After receiving the confirmation, he hung up his cell phone. That's when it happened. The woman darted out into the road surprising the man so badly. He had plenty of time to stop, but in his shock he had put on brakes rather suddenly nonetheless. The woman would look up to the windshield of the car and then…..

That's when he would wake up; cold sweats, breathing hard, unable to get his bearings, trying to find his clock to see how long he had before it would go off signaling that it was time to go catch another psychopath. He could remember everything so vividly, up to the point that the woman had looked up at him in his car. Beyond that, he had no recollections; he couldn't tell you what the woman looked like if you held a gun to his head.

As it was, he looked at the clock; he only had about 45 minutes before it would be going off. He figured he might as well get up and get ready for work; going back to sleep right now would be ridiculous, his sleep would just get interrupted a second time, and he would be cranky all day at work.

One thing was for sure, he would be glad when these damned dreams would stop waking him up in the wee hours of the morning.

Or so he thought.

**Post AN: So there is the first chapter. I can guarantee that ya'll can guess who the man is in the chapter. It's a short one….but wanted to see what would fall out.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Friday morning Hotch walked into the office feeling worn out. He hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep in days, if not weeks. As he made his way to the small set of steps that lead to the landing that housed his office, he passed Morgan, not even seeming to notice the other man's presence. Hotch seemed to be walking in a fog.

"Hotch…' No response.

"Hotch!' Hotch turned around to see Morgan standing there, brows knitted together a bit, a look of worry passing over his face.

"Morgan?"

"Are you alright? You seem kind of out of it."

Hotch gave a tired smile, 'Yeah, I'm alright, just have some things on my mind. Sorry."

"It's alright; I'm here if you want to talk."

"Thanks, I've just got some thinking to do."

What Hotch didn't realize was that Rossi was in his own office, watching him from the window like a hawk. He had noticed his friend and colleague of the past few days not feeling like his normal self. When they were at the office, Rossi would catch Aaron sitting behind his desk; elbows on the desk, forehead resting in his hands, eyes slammed shut. And then when they were on cases the past couple of weeks, Aaron seemed distracted, and that was on a good day.

As soon as Hotch entered his office and shut his door he sat at his desk, dropping his briefcase; sitting down he rested his head against the back of his chair. No sooner had his eyes closed than there was a knock at his office door.

Without even waiting for an invitation, Rossi walked through the door.

"So, are you gonna tell me what is wrong with you, or do I have to get Garcia?"

Aaron merely tilted his head in Rossi's direction, cracking an eye open.

"Have pity on a man would you? I haven't had a decent night's sleep in days."

"What's going on Aaron? All you have to do is tell me, and I might leave you alone for a little while."

Rossi had a rueful smile on his face.

"Yeah right, that's not your style."

Rossi only shrugged his shoulder as he sat in the chair across from Hotch's desk.

"So….What is the problem Aaron?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I…."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"The past couple of weeks I've been having the strangest dream. It's always the same. In the dream, it's raining. I'm driving down the road. I have been talking to Jessica on my cell about her keeping Jack over the weekend again. I am only on the phone for a matter of a few moments. Some short time after I hang up the call a woman darts out in front of my car from God knows where. I happen to see her soon enough that I can safely apply brakes, and yet I'm still so shocked that I apply them rather abruptly to begin with. When my car comes to a stop it's only a couple tiny inches from the woman."

"What does she look like? Do you remember anything about her at all?"

"No. I always wake up around the time that the car comes to a stop; that being the point when I could get a really good look at her face or anything else about her. All I can ever remember is her being in the road and being scared to death that I'm going to plow her over with my SUV.

Otherwise all I know about the dream is….I have a sense that the woman is in trouble. I mean why else would a strange woman just run out in front of a moving vehicle if she wasn't trying to get some help? Somehow I know she needs help and so far I've been able to do nothing for her. I wake up barely able to breathe, like I've been running track. I have cold sweats….and I know for a fact you've noticed my spotty performance lately.

Dave, I feel like I'm running on fumes. This dream…something's gotta give, I can't keep going this way. I can barely think straight around here. One night I was fixing dinner for Jack and myself and I was so worn out I sat down at the dining room table and fell asleep. Jack had been in his room playing and he smelled the food burning and came to wake me up."

Rossi saw just how tired his friend was beginning to look.

"Look, Aaron, take the rest of the day off."

"Dave, I don't even know if I can drive home like this or not. I barely remember the drive to come here in the first place."

"I can take you to my house, at least for the time being."

"Who will run the….?"

"Don't worry about that just now. Morgan can handle it for a few hours or days if that's what is needed. But you have to get some rest before you just collapse. I'll simply tell them that you have some issues with exhaustion and that I'm taking you home so I can help you get some rest. They don't have to know anything that you don't want them to know. You know you're too tired to fight me."

Hotch could only nod his head. It was all true. He wasn't sure that he had the mental capacity for a protracted argument or not.

"Get your things together and meet me at the elevators in say, five minutes."

With Hotch's agreement, Rossi made his way to his office to pick up his own brief case and car keys and then he made his way into Morgan's office to give him the lowdown about running the show for a couple hours, at least until he had time to call him with further instructions.

"Is Hotch ok?"

"He'll be fine; he's just a little worn down right now. He said something about not feeling to good, maybe just a bit under the weather."

This wasn't a total lie. Hotch had said that there was rain in the dream. So that qualified as bad weather. Perhaps that was stretching things a bit far to fit the truth, but until he and Hotch could figure this out further, this nugget would have to do for the time being.

"Ok, just let me know if he needs anything."

"If who needs what?"

Garcia had just walked up to the door of Morgan's office to drop off a couple of files.

_Oh no, this isn't good_. Rossi almost cringed. Garcia would want to know who was having the problem, what the problem was, and would not stop until the problem had been obliterated. She loved her boys; Morgan the most out of them all, but she had a warm and fuzzy spot for each of the men in some form or fashion.

"It's nothing Garcia, just that Hotch isn't feeling so well, and I'm going to take him to my place to see if he can get any rest for a few hours. I can call one of you a little bit later and tell you more about how he's feeling."

"I can make you both something to bring by for dinner….."

"I don't know…"

"Come on Super Dave….he's the boss man. I gotta do something. Some take out or something. If you're going to be taking care of him for a bit, the two of you will need something to eat, and someone to check on the both of you to make sure you haven't strained each other's last nerves."

"She has a really good point there, Rossi."

"Fine. Come by around six. Bring take out from that Vietnamese place he likes. Take my credit card; buy enough for the four of us. He likes the Pho Beef soup and if they have any, some of the Tarot Bubble Tea that they make. He's always partial to that flavor."

"Alright, Dave we'll be there later."

"Just watch over poor Hotch for me till we get there."

Rossi smiled at Garcia._ Poor Hotch_ was going to get enough mothering to choke a horse if he wasn't careful. Garcia needed to have babies, so she would have an outlet for this sort of thing. Maybe after he got Aaron whipped back into shape, he'd recommend that Morgan do a little something about that.

He almost chuckled to himself as he made his way to the elevators. Hotch was so tired he was swaying on his feet as Rossi walked up next to him.

"Come on Aaron, we'll get you home and get you some rest, you'll be right as rain in no time."

Hotch fell asleep on the ride over to Rossi's place. "_I hope he doesn't think that I'm carrying him through the door."_ Rossi thought smugly to himself as he pulled into his driveway, waiting for his garage door to open enough to pull on through.

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Meanwhile, across town on an old abandoned farm, a young woman sat tied to a chair. She was filthy. Her clothes were in tatters. She was for all intents and purposes, unable to speak. She had forgotten how long these people had been holding her. She only knew that she had seen them take the red haired woman that had been seated not more than 7ft from her into the other room and she hadn't seen her again; and come to think of it the screams had stopped and it was eerily quiet.

For days she had been praying and begging God to get her out of this. She wanted to scream and yell to make some noise, but her throat hurt. She knew that the last couple times they strangled her that they had gone nearly too far. She knew there would be some damage, maybe only bruising to her larynx, although she had no real idea of how bad it might be. But then again, it's not like she could scream anyway, not with that gag they had the gag placed in her mouth and secured tightly around the back of her head.

Although she had no clue how long they had been keeping her (time becomes irrelevant when you're pretty sure you're going to die in a place like this), she knew that the sun was about to set on yet another day. She couldn't see out of the window directly, it was behind her. But she could see the shades and shadows on the wall and how they changed. Soon it would be dark.

Using her eyes, the only part of her body that she could freely move, she looked to the sky again; her prayers were always the same.

_Just please, God, let me live._

**Post AN: So there's chapter 2. Lemme know what you think. And for anyone that didn't already know, I am not a doctor, I don't know that much about medical terms and issues. But when I can, if I have my doubts, I do try to at least look some of it up to be able to BS my way through something. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"**When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about." (Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore)**

Morning broke over the old farm house where she was being held. The young woman raised her head and tried to work the kinks out of her neck, having slept with her chin resting against her chest. She hated to even think of how filthy she was; she hadn't been able to bathe in days. She heard the door to one of the other rooms opening and closing.

"Did we have a good night?" One of the captors came and grabbed her by the chin, making her look him in the eye. She jerked her face away from him the best way she could.

"And that is why you are still alive, you still amuse me. Remember that."

'_Keeping me alive will be the worst mistake you will ever make',_ She thought to herself.

The man walked across the room, knocking on the door to yet another room, 'Come on, we gotta get rid of her."

Another man came out of the room, fastening the button on the front of his jeans and they made their way over to the door of the room that she had seen them take the red haired woman into.

They were in there for a total of three minutes. When they came out they were each holding the end of a rug or blanket that had been rolled up; if it had not been for the silky strands of red hair that were sneaking out of one end, anybody would have thought that it was just a dirty rug and they were getting rid of it. She knew better.

The first captor had gotten a third man and told him that he and their other friend should keep an eye on her until they got back from the place they were going to dump the woman in the bundle.

"I'll be back. Don't worry your pretty little head, I would never leave you for long." With that the asshole winked at her and left.

The other two men that had been left behind took their posts. One was lounging on the sofa in the room, flipping channels, trying to see if there had been any further news coverage about the missing women. The fourth man was in the kitchen making breakfast for everybody, well, the men.

She must have made too much noise moving around in her seat; the man watching TV jumped up and flew over to her, waving the gun in her face.

"Don't make the mistake thinking I won't enjoy killing you when the time comes. I have always thought that Damian was making a mistake keeping you. Now sit there and shut up."

'_So, one of them is named Damian. Good to know'_, she was keeping everything she learned filed away as ammunition, should she ever get the chance to get out of here alive.

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As soon as Rossi pulled up to his house Hotch had been sent to stay in one of the guest rooms. As soon as he sat on the edge of the bed his eyes seemed to slam shut. The bed was so comfortable and he was so tired; he just couldn't help himself. He remained seated on the edge of the bed, eyes shut, still asleep when Rossi made his way up the stairs to go to his own room to change his clothes.

Dave glanced into the guest room to see if Aaron was ok and saw him perched there, dozing. Walking into the room Dave managed to pull some of the covers back on the bed and then got Aaron's suit jacket off of him. Next, Dave pushed Aaron into a reclining position against the pillows that were behind him, taking Aaron's shoes off of him as he placed his feet on the bed; before leaving the room, Dave pulled the sheet and the comforter up over Aaron and went over and closed the drapes to block more light, allowing for more sleep.

After changing into a pair of jeans and an old T-shirt, Rossi went downstairs and began to go through some of the case files in his briefcase. It would be a few more hours before Morgan and Garcia came over with the take-out; he figured he would work on the case file for an hour or two and then maybe try working out a chapter on the next book he was writing, that should kill a few hours.

Before going into his office to work on his book, Rossi made himself a sandwich and grabbed a beer, turning on the news to catch up on the world for a hot second. Not much caught his eye outside of a news report about the body of a red head turning up on the bank of the Potomac. According to the news cast, there were scant few clues; the police could tell that the woman had been tortured to some degree before death, but they were currently trying to determine the actual cause of death. Other than that they weren't revealing much else to the media; her identity, if they knew it at this time wasn't being released until next of kin could be found and notified.

Once Rossi had heard all the news update had to offer he snapped the TV off and made his way to the office carrying the remainder of his beer and promptly got out his notes on the latest chapter he had wanted to go over.

He found himself drifting; he was thinking more about the woman found by the river than he was about his book.

'_Great, now Aaron's rubbing off on me, that's all I need,'_ Dave thought to himself.

He couldn't get comfortable at his desk if his life depended on it, so he moved to the leather sofa he had in the office, reclining a bit with his feet up on the table in front of him.

Dave must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew was that the door-bell was ringing. He put both feet back down on the ground and noticed he had dropped his notes onto his chest when he started dozing; he picked them up and placed them in a stack on his desk before going to answer the door.

Getting to the door and checking the peep-hole, he saw Derek and Pen.

"Come on in you two and keep it quiet. He's been asleep since we came in this morning. Did you bring the food?"

"Of course we did, and here's your card back." Morgan had opened his wallet and removed Dave's credit card.

"Where's the boss man? I want to see him."

"He's upstairs sleeping, don't go waking him up."

"Stop stressin', I just want to check on him. Which room?"

"Second one on the right, up the stairs."

Garcia toddled out of the room on her sky high heels; Morgan shaking his head the entire time.

"You gave up quick old man."

"I just didn't want her getting cranked up and wake him up if I could avoid it. Speaking of her mothering streak….When are the two of you going to drop pretenses and just make us some damned babies already? I'm not getting any younger and I want more grandchildren. And I know that's exactly your mother's sentiment. So, what's the problem? Malfunctioning equipment?"

"You _must be_ crazy. It just so happens that I am in top notch working order. But you know that Pen and I are just friends. Everybody knows that."

"No, let me correct you my dear boy. Everybody knows the two of you are on the verge of ripping each other's clothes off. The two of you are the only ones buying into the _'We're just friends'_ crap. Snap out of it Skippy, you're not fooling anybody. Cut to the chase and make me some more grandbabies; sooner rather than later."

Morgan could only grin and shake his head.

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Garcia had made her way to the door of the room where Rossi had said that Hotch would be. She quietly opened the door to the room. Thanks to Rossi closing the drapes it was actually pretty dark in there, she could just make out the form of her boss; he was curled on his side, with his back to the door. Pen couldn't be sure that he was actually asleep so she went around to the other side of the bed. He was laying there with his eyes open, just staring at the wall.

"Have you been to sleep at all?" Garcia nearly whispered to Hotch.

"Maybe for an hour, two at most. I just can't sleep."

"What's wrong?" Garcia pulled the chair that had been over near the window closer to the bed, sitting beside Aaron.

"Garcia…."

"Don't give me that tone; you're too tired for it to work. Besides, Derek is downstairs with Rossi, don't make me go get him; I'm the lesser of two evils right now. And if you are a good boy and tell me what your problems is there might be some Vietnamese soup downstairs waiting on you."

Hotch sighed heavily, knowing she was right. Garcia might be a little pushy sometimes, but she was the sweetest person he knew. Dealing with her would be ever so much easier than dealing with Morgan.

"I've been having the weirdest dream for the past few weeks. At first it wasn't that big of a deal. In the beginning it was just about me driving down a dark road with woods on either side, I had just hung up from a call on my cell. Over the past few weeks it has morphed. Lately it's about the same thing, only now, as I get to a certain point on the road a woman leaps out in front of my car from the God only knows where, and it has been raining a bit, and its night. I never see the woman's face. All I know is that I am able to stop my SUV mere inches from hitting her and that her head and shoulders barely come up high enough to see over the hood on my vehicle. I get out to help her, and before I can see any details about her face or anything else, I wake up. I am breathing heavily, I'm in a cold sweat, I'm disoriented…..and I can't go back to sleep because my mind is racing with trying to figure out who the woman is and what's wrong that she just darts out into traffic. You know how I get on these things."

"I do, I do. So, listen to me please…."

"Yes?"

"Stop it! It's a dream Hotch. You don't even know if this woman actually exists, much less that she's in danger. And you said yourself you haven't seen her face or anything so how could you even begin to look for her in missing persons to find out. Just stop it."

"I wish it were that simple. Don't you think I've thought of that over the past few weeks? I've tried telling myself how silly this is, but I can't make it stop."

"I know. But I had to try. Come on down and have some of that soup; Rossi said it was your favorite. Maybe getting something on your stomach will make you feel a little better."

"Yes mom."

"How very droll. Come on boss man, up ya go."

Garcia helped Hotch up off of the bed, making a mental note to check through local missing persons records to see if she couldn't accidently stumble upon Hotch's mystery woman. It couldn't hurt. If she _could_ find the woman, it would get him back to sleeping properly. She hated to see Hotch all out of sorts…if he couldn't hold it together then what hope was there for the rest of them?

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She wasn't let down. Damian meant it when he said he wouldn't be gone long, even though time was irrelevant to her now. According to the way the men talked it had only been about 30 minutes that Damian and the other guy, she thought his name was Joshua, had been gone. The red haired rug was not with them, so that meant that they'd be looking for a replacement soon. Until they found a new play thing, she was going to be a busy girl.

'_Damn her, she couldn't have lasted a little longer, really?'_ she knew she was wrong to have those thoughts. As much as she hated being strapped down in this chair, it was definitely better than the alternative. She had yet to have breakfast today; but it hardly mattered, she didn't get fed every day, that's just how things were.

Walking closer to her on his way to his room, Damian stopped and untied her wrists and feet, pulling her out of the chair.

"I am going to be otherwise occupied for a while, try not to do anything stupid until further notice." He commanded the others. Joshua and the other two men simply nodded their agreement before the door to Damian's room shut behind him.

He had tossed her down onto the mattress as he spun her into the room, following soon after.

She had to prepare to play the game again; fight enough to keep him interested….it's all that kept you alive….but pretend to be afraid of him enough that you will ultimately do as he pleases….you don't want to resist to the point that he gets angry and snaps. Perhaps if he was feeling generous today not only would he let her eat something, but bathe as well….living on that assumption she knew there would be time to vomit later.

That was the last real thought that she had as she heard him unzipping his pants and lowered himself onto her.

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**Post AN: Ok, so I'm cutting chapter 3 off there. And yes, I realize that I have yet to name my OC. I am trying to hold out naming her until she crosses paths with Hotch, somewhere in that time frame; trying to make it out like he's going to be the first character to actually get to know her name. But we'll see how things turn out. Eventually will start including more quotes or song lyrics as the story goes, depending on how each chapter hits me. Lemme know what you think, good or bad. I only learn if I'm doing a good job if ya'll let me know. Peace out.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"**What do we say to the Lord of Death?"**

**"Not today." (George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones)**

Damian rolled off of her three hours ago, but she dared not move. If he felt the mattress shift even the slightest, he'd wake up; waking Damian up was a bad move. She had to get up and use the bathroom so freaking bad, but she didn't dare move. He had his arm draped around her, so he would know if she even farted. _Damn the luck,_ she thought to herself. Besides, even if she made it as far as standing up her body would make her pay for the decision; she ached everywhere. Damian was not a gentle man in any sense of the word. She kept having to remind herself to be patient as long as possible. Eventually she would be allowed to shower; however brief that might be, she was always grateful for those few moments. Her left side was aching; she supposed that's what she got for trying to pull herself away from Damian earlier…..He told her that it forced him to beat her when he didn't really want to. So now, more of his BS was her fault. These moments that she was trapped on this hideous mattress were not wasted. She constantly plotted the best way to escape should the opportunity present itself. It went without saying that all of her plans were contingent on some slight oversight by these….men.

She had to be patient, they would fuck up, and then she would have her chance.

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Hotch sat on the sofa in Rossi's living room eating his Pho Beef soup quietly, deep in thought. Morgan and Garcia were sitting on the love seat on the other side of the coffee table from him, trying not to just blatantly stare, but watching him intermittently. Rossi had no compunction; he was not above a good old fashioned stare-down.

A dozen bites later, he finally looked up as if sensing three pairs of eyes on him.

"What?" He asked wiping at his mouth with the napkin.

"Aaron, you have to stop thinking about this dream woman. It's not healthy."

"I know, and I really do try. But it was so damned real, you have no idea. I keep trying to think of how I would actually act if she was to cross my path….how I would help her. And that's not even the bit that keeps me awake."

"What is it then?"

"Trying to figure out how to see her face….to figure out who she might be. I don't care about anything else much outside of the fact that I have to do something to help her, to save her. But her identity is the thing that keeps me awake."

With that Hotch kept eating, putting a stop to the questions for the time being. For some reason the soup was extremely good this time, ever so much more than usual. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that it was acting as a shield today as well.

After everyone had finished eating, they decided to watch some old movie; it was 'Topper' with Cary Grant from 1937. Garcia was resting her head against Derek's chest as they curled up on the love seat; they were passing Twizzlers between themselves.

"_Apt title for that piece I think,'_ Rossi thought to himself as he propped his old dogs on the footstool in front of him.

Hotch couldn't concentrated on the film. He'd seen it enough times before in his youth to know the script nearly by heart; he could have cared less about seeing it again. It was a great movie, that wasn't the problem.

The others wanted him to forget this unknown woman, but it wasn't that easy….not when images of her were what woke him up every time he shut his eyes. How was he supposed to forget that kind of thing? Besides he felt like if he kept trying to go back over his dream, he might remember a detail he had missed before. But then, he began to think….

His friends were right. He didn't even know if this was a real woman and if she was really in trouble. It was apparent that if this was something real, that the events hadn't even happened yet. And with that being said, it's not like Hotch could do anything to prevent it. So he couldn't understand why he was spazzing out about this 'dream' woman. But he just couldn't stand to leave any stone unturned if he could help it. He couldn't even get Garcia to check missing persons reports to narrow down who this might be since he had never really been able to see any physical attributes of this woman. For all intents and purposes he had never even seen enough of her physically to even know that this was a woman he was dreaming of; it was just a feeling he had.

The harder he thought about this he began to doze off on Dave's sofa. Thirty minutes later, Rossi looked over and Hotch was out cold. Dave let him sleep since he was having so much trouble with it lately. Even Garcia had dozed quietly, resting her head against Derek's chest.

"_I better be getting grandchildren soon, I'm not getting any younger…"_ Dave shook his head and smiled; Derek never so much as glanced Dave's way. Another 15 minutes later, and Derek had fallen asleep as well, his left arm wrapped snuggly around Penelope.

Dave stood up and grabbed a blanket off of the back of the love seat and draped it over the couple; then, he walked over to the sofa and tossed another blanket over Hotch's sleeping form. After he had seen to his friends, Dave walked into the kitchen to get a quick drink of water; he figured he'd head into his office and do a little work while the others were sleeping. Making his way back through the living room he shut the TV down and continued on his way to his little office.

After Rossi made his way into his office, Hotch cracked his eye open and scanned the room. Morgan was holding onto Garcia, cuddling her close. He saw the door to Rossi's office was shut almost completely, barely opened more than a crack.

He flung the blanket off of himself and quietly rolled off of the sofa, getting to his feet. He checked to make sure he had his cell phone and then quietly made his way out of the front door. Hotch sincerely hoped he could get the SUV started without anyone hearing it. That's all he needed; Morgan standing there, in front of the car, glaring at him, demanding the keys like he was eight years old. As he walked out of the house, Hotch noticed it had started raining slightly; it was a bit heavier than a sprinkle, but it wasn't a deluge either.

Hotch got the SUV started and began rolling out of the driveway. It was late on a Thursday night; he hoped that a short drive would calm his mind down a bit. He had to try it.

About four miles up the road, his cell phone rang; it was Jessica, his former sister-in-law.

"Hey Jess. Yeah I was gonna call you tomorrow, well later today, and ask if it was alright for him to stay over the weekend and I could just pick him up on Monday. It's not likely we'll get a case, but the week has been so quiet, I just don't know what to expect…..Yeah, true. With school starting soon it will give him a few more days to spend with his cousins swimming and cutting up. I always try to be careful. I hope he's good for you this weekend. Call me if you need a break from it all and I will come get him. I know you love him to death, but everybody needs some time off sometimes. I will owe you big time come Christmas. You have no idea. Alright, well you have a good night as well. I will come by sometime tomorrow and bring him some fresh clothes and check in to see how everyone is doing. See you later."

Hotch had just hung up with Jessica, placing his cell phone in a pocket on the console between the seats when something dashed out into the middle of the road. Hotch had just enough time to apply the brakes without slamming them on thanks to the fact he hadn't been going at the full speed limit.

The SUV came to a stop quickly maybe three inches from the being in front of it. Hotch glanced out of the windshield. He couldn't see any details about the person standing in front of his vehicle. Suddenly his breath became choppy. He knew exactly what was happening. This was his dream! Before he got out of the driver's seat, he pinched himself….

He seemed to be wide awake. _"Good lord, it's actually happening!"_

Putting the car in park, he slowly opened the door and stepped out. Making his way around to the front of the vehicle the person in the road came more into focus, the lighting didn't seem quite as harsh; he could begin to make out features. His eyes were moving up from the feet. It was a woman, he could tell by the figure. He nearly gasped in surprise when he got to her face…..

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Later that night, Damian finally left her alone on that filthy mattress. He and the boys had decided to go grab another woman. In the excitement over the idea of hunting, Damian didn't bother restraining her, or locking her in the room. She had staid still, pretending to sleep as he got up and went into his room to get some fresh clothes. Silently, she began thanking God. Tonight was going to be the night. She nearly leapt from the mattress with joy at the idea of getting out of that damned place. But she had to be careful. She had to wait until they were gone; and even then she wasn't 100% sure that all of them would go.

Lying there she listened; Damian gave the order for one of the men to stay there and make sure she didn't do something stupid.

"_No, but I will do something freaking genius."_ She thought to herself quietly, although she really wanted to laugh or get excited over the idea of what she was about to do. But she had to remain calm. If she got too worked up over everything, it could all back fire and then she'd look like a fool.

Once Damian and Joshua were gone with two of the other men, she rolled over, carefully, on the mattress. She sat up and looked around the room. She wasn't sure where her clothes were, or how much would be left of them. She saw some clothes lying around that belonged to at least some of the men, if not all of them.

She heard the TV click on; _"Gary is always the dumbest of the bunch it seems. He's going to sit there watching TV when he has a job to do. This wouldn't be happening if they had left Joshua here. Thank you God for the small favors."_

Quietly she began gathering the bits of clothes. There was a pair of jeans, a belt, a T-shirt, some socks and a pair of shoes. This room must have been their laundry basket. As disgusted with the idea of wearing their clothes as she might have been, she reasoned that IF she found somebody to help her she might need some proof, some way of getting DNA. She had watched enough crime shows on TV and known a few cops in her day on top of that; she knew that having DNA at their disposal sometimes made all the difference. She put on the pants, and the belt….sashing that as tight as she could to keep the pants on. She pulled the T-shirt on over her head and pulled her long hair out of the back of it. Next, she crammed the socks into each pocket. Lastly, she tied the shoestrings from either shoe together in a not and pulled on them to make sure it was tight enough to hold.

She looked around to see if she could make it through the window. Getting up off of the mattress she looked outside; it was dark, she had no idea just how far down the ground was. And besides, the bottom window sill was just far enough off of the ground that she would have one hell of a time crawling out of it and she highly doubted it would be a good idea to ask Gary to come and give her a boost.

"_Fabulous. All dressed up and nowhere to go!"_ she snidely thought.

Just then the doorbell rang.

"_Who the hell is coming here this time of night?"_ She couldn't help but think to herself, nearly out loud. Nobody had ever come by ringing the doorbell at any time before.

"Coming,' Gary shouted as he got up off of the couch to go to the door.

Upon opening the door it became apparent that it was some bible beater, maybe a Jehovah's Witness. They wanted to know what church this fine young man belonged to. They began to quiz him on his scriptures. Gary had tried to be nice about them going away, but they kept asking him questions. And Gary, slow, special Gary, didn't want to appear rude to people doing God's work…..especially considering what he and his friends had been doing. He figured he'd put up with it if this would help make God look the other way.

She really didn't hear the whole conversation. About the third question out of the one man's mouth she slung the shoes across her neck and bolted off of the mattress and made her way out of the room towards the back door. She had to leave the door open to allow the light from the house to give her something to see by as far as it could reach; otherwise she would have shut it behind her to give herself a few extra seconds in the long run….although she needn't worry. She had the forethought to leave the window of her room open to throw Gary off at least to the point he would waste time calling the others. Nothing was guaranteed, but the others were likely 10 or 15 miles away; they didn't hunt too close to home. It would take them the better part of 30 minutes at least to get back. In that time, Gary could only search so much of an area on his own…..that's if he even bothered to call. He might get so afraid of Damian and Joshua that he would run away himself.

These were all things that she thought about as she ran like hell in any direction away from the building. She came to a barn that was 50 yards away and she ran inside. Flicking on the lights she rummaged around looking for anything she might be able to use. She grabbed a huge emergency flashlight, testing it. Thankfully, it seemed to be working properly. Next, she grabbed a tire iron, some kind of jacked up bug spray, a lighter and a book of matches. There was some length of rope that she grabbed as an afterthought, not sure what she might use it for, but she couldn't be too careful.

With that she shut the light in the barn off and moved around behind it, turning the flashlight on the dimmest setting that she could use and still be able to see.

There were woods in front of her. _"Awesome, they brought me out to the boonies."_

With no other choice she asked God to bless the bible beater at the door for their timing and began to move into the woods. She walked carefully, barefooted, through the woods. Sticks and rocks were digging into her feet. But she had no choice. The shoes were too big for her feet and would just hold her back. She walked deeper and deeper into the woods; using the flashlight on a slightly higher setting she shined it through the trees, and couldn't make out any landmarks, so she must be into them good.

Not knowing how far or how long she had actually walked, she had to sit down just for a minute. She hurt from that last beating. That alone was bad enough; but she was also quite hungry and cold, so very cold. And it was starting to rain.

"_My night keeps getting better."_ She thought to herself as she sat down on a fallen log to catch her breath for a moment. After sitting there for what had to be about five minutes, she got back to her feet and continued on her way. She walked forever it seemed like, but without a watch she had no way of knowing for sure how long it was. She began trying to look for a way out of these woods. She felt as though she had been in them long enough. But she was getting really cold and wet. She'd be surprised if she didn't die of pneumonia out here. Looking around she saw what looked like some old barn or hunting cabin that was left over from the war of 1812…..beggars couldn't be choosers. She went inside; at least it would offer her some dry patch from the rain. She sat down all of her supplies.

Most people would question the bug spray. This time of year, closing in on winter, there were few bugs to worry about. But if the guys had caught up to her in some way, she could use the bug spray in conjunction with the lighter as a flame thrower; at least that's how she'd worked it out in her head. The matches she brought, just because you never knew when a good book of matches would come in handy…

Jackpot; there was some old wood piled up in a corner, mostly busted 2x4s from some long forgotten building project. She walked over and knocked out a board from the wall of the barn, opening a hole she did the same to the other side of the barn. Between those two holes and the open doorway, there should be plenty of ventilation for the time being. She grabbed a couple of the broken pieces of the 2x4s and piled them up in the middle of the room, adding some of the leaves and straw that happened to be left in here from Mother Nature doing her thing. With the matches she carefully lit a fire. She had to get warm and dry off at least a little. She was shaking with cold. With her fire lit, she began to really look around the place a little more. There was a tarp; it was an old dingy dark sort of army green. It would help her blend into her surroundings a little more if she needed it, and if nothing else she could use it as a blanket if she could find nothing else. Luckily, she was able to find an old lock box of sorts that was left behind, rummaging through that she found an actual blanket. God only knows how dirty it was, but she was filthy herself right this moment. She hadn't be allowed to bathe in days, she felt disgusting. And then there was this little field trip through the woods…..she couldn't wait to get back to civilization again. Taking the blanket over to the fire she had built she laid it out flat on the floor. Next, she folded the tarp up as much as she could, she was making a pillow. After this was done, she went over and grabbed eight more pieces of the wood. Putting two of them on the fire, she decided to try to really rest; she needed to take some weight off of her ribs, they were screaming at her, especially on her left side. She lay on her right side watching the fire burning, trying to lay far enough away that she didn't get too much heat on her face, but had enough to keep her warm. Half of the blanket remained on the floor under her and she wrapped the other half around herself to cover up with.

She must have dozed off, because when she woke up the fire was getting awful low. As much as it was enticing to stay there, she couldn't; there was still time for them to find her. She sat up, checking herself over. She wasn't completely dried out, but it would have to do. She had to get moving again. She decided to try to find a road or something that might eventually lead her to civilization.

She rolled the bug spray in the blanket and rolled the blanket in the tarp to try to keep it dry; then she picked up the lighter and the matches and put them in her pockets. Next she got the crow bar, and slid it into the rolled up tarp and blanket.

She wasn't sure how long she had walked, but she could hear the sound of a car on pavement. Unrolling the tarp she made her way close to the street and hunkered down, drawing the tarp over her. With its dark coloring it would keep her from being seen right away as well as keeping her as dry as possible.

Sure enough, a car drove past her location, going approximately the speed limit. She held off on flagging them down. She needed to get herself together a second. Now all that she needed to do was wait for another car. Although the ground was cold and wet, she relaxed onto it for a few minutes, trying to take some pressure off of her ribs again.

She might have been lying there for 20 minutes, time had become irrelevant to her, but she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. She had to jump out and flag it down; it might be the last car on this road at this time of night period. Even if it was Damian and the others coming for her, she had to take that chance….better to die trying, breathing free air than to die on that awful mattress under Damian.

Saying one last prayer for this to work, she closed her eyes, dropped her supplies, and stepped out into the road…..

The car was closer than she had initially thought. It was dark and rainy out, there was a sharp curve beyond where she had been; she couldn't tell for sure how close the vehicle was, but it was close enough to hear, that's all that had mattered. Now she was left with the feeling that perhaps she should have done some better math than she had. The car was coming on pretty fast.

_Should I move? NO! If I move, they may not see me, and then I'm back to square one. If they hit me, they hit me….at least then someone will know that I am here._

She stood there, in the middle of the road, her eyes squinting in the brightness of the headlights, waiting….

She knew the second that the driver saw her; she heard the brakes. The car came to a complete stop maybe three inches, at the most, from her. _'Thank You God!'_ She was ecstatic that they had stopped.

It was another moment or two before the driver exited the vehicle. At this time she began to worry about things. She hadn't really thought things through. She had been held by Damian and the others for….what was the date?...she couldn't remember. What if this person was just like them? Worse, what if it was one of them? Her heart began to beat hard in her chest. She couldn't hear anything but the blood rushing through her ears. She was beginning to feel a little light headed. After being locked away for so long the fresh air was doing funny things to her head….

The driver's side door opened and a man got out. She slammed her eyes shut for a second as if bracing for the inevitable. When nothing happened, she cracked open her right eye trying to see what was going on.

He was standing there staring at her, like he had seen her before or somehow knew her. She had never seen him before in her life. He was a handsome devil though, a good bit taller than her with dark hair and eyes.

All the adrenaline that had carried her out of that place and through the woods and on to this point had finally run its course. Her knees buckled and she began to fall to the wet pavement. She didn't even have the strength to brace herself for impact….an impact that never came.

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Hotch watched as she began to collapse; as her knees buckled and she began to crumple he rushed forward and caught her under the arms, stopping her decent. Stopping for a moment to get a grip on her he picked her up bridal style and carried her to his SUV; he put her in the passenger seat and cranked the heat up, then ran to the back, opening the trunk and tossing a spare blanket into the back seat. Then he climbed back into the driver's side and reached into the back seat to grab the blanket. Once he had the blanket wrapped around her as securely as possible, he reached around and managed to get her seat belt buckled.

After buckling his own seat belt he did a three point turn and headed back to Rossi's house.

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Rossi had spent the better part of 30 minutes reading over his notes and rearranging them into something useful when he decided to go check on Hotch, Garcia, and Morgan.

"Where the hell is Aaron!" Rossi's voice boomed through the room.

Morgan moved and fell off of the love seat, barely able to keep the same from happening to Pen.

"Dude, really?"

"Sir, maybe he just went to the restroom." Garcia tried to calm the older man.

"No, he's gone. He's been acting so strange lately; I shouldn't have put this pas…."

The door flung open. Hotch was standing there, soaked through almost to the bone, holding a bundled blanket. And it looked like there was a woman wrapped up in there somewhere. He hadn't said anything yet.

"Hotch what the hell….?" Morgan came up to him, ushering him back into the house.

"I went out for a drive to try to clear my head. It didn't work, well, not the way I thought it would." Sheepishly, he grinned at the others, 'But I found her." He thrusts the pile of blankets at Morgan, Rossi, and Garcia.

"Bring her over here and set her on the couch. What happened?" Rossi instructed, as he spread the blanket that had been covering Hotch out and grabbed the one that he had used to cover Morgan and Garcia to throw over the young woman once Aaron laid her down. Her hair was dripping wet, her clothes were soaked completely, she was barefoot; her feet were all scratched up, dirty, and bleeding. And if Rossi's eyes weren't deceiving him, he thought he could make out just the faintest hint of some scratches that were likely across her chest that were poking above the neck of the shirt that she had on.

Hotch began to relate the story that had happened, 'It was exactly like the dream. It was night time, raining, even down to the damned phone call. And then she came out of nowhere it seemed. At first I thought I was still back here, asleep on the sofa. I had to pinch myself to make sure. Things have been getting so strange for me lately…."

As he talked, Morgan turned around and began dialing up for an ambulance. He knew one thing was for sure, that woman had run away from something, something horrible, and she was going to need to go to the hospital.

"Yes this is Agent Derek Morgan with the FBI. We need an ambulance…" Morgan continued to give the address and a few minor details that he knew for sure. Garcia went upstairs to the hall closet to grab another blanket. She couldn't off the woman a hair dryer or clean clothes, they had to get her to the hospital and take care of all that first….and the woman had to wake up, eventually. She had to. There were 1,000 questions to ask her….not to mention some of the ones that Hotch might want answered.

Morgan elected to go out into the garage and wait for the EMT's to show up. Hotch couldn't be pried away from that woman with a stick of dynamite and a crow bar. Garcia wanted to do something to help, it's just her way, but until the doctors checked the woman over, there wasn't much that could be done. Rossi was staying with Hotch keeping his eyes on the young woman.

"Pen come wait with me and keep me company."

"You betcha Hotstuff, you don't even have to ask."

Hotch wanted to move her hair back from her face, but not knowing what might be evidence, he didn't feel as though he should touch her more than he already had.

He was finally able to take stock of his 'dream woman'. She was petite; the average height for women was around 5'4 or 5'5….she might have been close to 5'4, but she was definitely not over that. Her weight was hard to guess; she seemed like she might weight 110-120lbs at any given time, but looked as though she hadn't eaten in quite some time and was too thin. Her skin was pale, nearly alabaster, especially with the exposure to the elements. Her hair was dark, curly, and long, nearly to her hips. Her eyes had been large and brown; her lips were shaped like a cupid's bow and were rosy pink….or probably would be if they weren't pale with cold. _'Snow White,'_ Hotch thought quietly to himself. _'And where the hell did that come from?'_ He saw that one of her hands was resting on the edge of the sofa, somehow having escaped being covered by the blanket. He took it into his own hands; it was so cold, she must have been chilled nearly to the bone. He began rubbing the hand between both of his to try and at least warm that up; if he could just get that one hand warmed up there had to be hope for the rest of her.

He could hear the ambulance and the police coming in the distance. He knew he'd have to pull rank to be able to ride to the hospital with her. The locals were going to want to ask a shit ton of questions; it was their job to do so. But he was riding to the hospital with her, questions be damned. Once he got her to the hospital and knew she would be safe, he'd answer anything anybody asked him, he didn't care about questions right now. Above all else, the existence of this woman proved that he wasn't totally losing his mind. He'd have to thank her when he got a chance to speak with her.

The EMT's rushed into the house being led in by Morgan and Garcia; the cops followed closely behind. Luckily the senior officer that was there had worked with the team before, and he knew how Hotch operated. He didn't even try to argue.

"Agent Hotchner, I'll wait to ask my questions tomor….well, after she's been seen to; I know you aren't going to even be in the right frame of mind to answer anything right now anyway. And frankly, I don't want to be trapped in a small room with you just now."

Rossi had to bite his upper lip, hard, to keep from laughing at that remark. _'Yeah, the man knows Aaron well enough.'_

"Thank you Lt. Danforth. Thank you….' Hotch didn't know where else to go with it really; he was too distracted watching the EMT's moving his woman from the sofa to the gurney and wrapping her in their own blankets. He heard one of them say something about her pulse being rather weak, and that her pupils were dilated. They began attaching some of the sensors that they were going to use to help them read her vitals while they were en route. He heard another EMT remark at how cold she was and that this was one of the coldest bodies he had ever felt that still had any pulse to speak of.

"Yes well, until her pulse stops for good she is still a human being…." Hotch barked, making his way over to the EMT that had made the offensive comment, only to be stopped by Dave.

"Of course Sir, I was merely making an observation. I'm sorry."

"Agent Hotchner, if you intend to go with us, you better come along; we don't have any time to waste. We have to get her to a hospital so they can properly work on raising her core temperature and get these wounds taken care of before infections set in."

Hotch looked at Rossi, 'Go Aaron, go. We'll be right behind you in my car. I'll call Chief Cruz when it's not stupid-o'clock in the morning and let him know that you won't be coming in for the next day or two, that you may need some personal time. That should buy you a few hours anyway to try to see what will happen."

"Thanks Dave, I'll have to owe you one."

"I'll tell you what, name a child after me, we'll call it even."

Hotch could only shake his head as he ran in the direction of the ambulance.

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

**Post AN: Odd spot to end it, perhaps; but then, that's what I'm known for lately it seems. But at least this way we can pick it up at the hospital and find out what her injuries might be….referring to the ones that aren't visible to the naked eye, like her feet. I just have to take a little time to come up with what injuries I think I want her to have…and make sure I have the right name that I wanted to give her picked out; yes, I know, I've left my OC anonymous so far, crazy ain't it. **


	5. Chapter 5

**Premonitions Chpt 5**

Hotch wasn't allowed behind the doors of the Emergency Department, but was lead to the waiting room; that was where Rossi and the rest of the team found him pacing when they arrived.

"What do you know?" Rossi all but demanded.

"Nothing yet; they've only been back there for about 20 minutes. And nobody's come out yet to update me about her condition.

"Well Aaron, you better sit down or they will charge you for new floors."

"Don't start with me…."

"Just sit down already. Emily, I want you and JJ to go grab some coffees for us while we wait."

Both women nodded as they got up to do Rossi's bidding. It took them 15 minutes to go grab the coffee, they wanted to go down to the cafeteria and get the good stuff instead of the kind out of the vending machine. They also wanted to give Rossi a few extra minutes to work on Hotch and get him to calm down. Emily and JJ, as well as Reid were sort of out of the loop about what was going on. They had no clue about what it was that had their boss so wound up. Rossi had just called them at an insane hour of the morning and told them to meet him and Hotch at Mercy General. Hopefully they would be receiving some kind of explanation soon.

They made their way back to the waiting room with seven coffees and enough sugar for a small refugee camp. As they sat down, Emily requested that Hotch please enlighten them as to what was going on.

"A few weeks ago, I think….'he rubbed his forehead, so tired he couldn't really remember things so easily anymore, 'A few weeks ago, I started having a weird dream about driving down a dark road, at night, in the rain. Suddenly, from out of nowhere a woman jumps out in front of my car. The dream was always the same; I could never make out facial features or any sort of physical description of the woman to speak of. I would get out of my vehicle to check on her and could tell that she needed medical attention. That's all I knew about her.

For all this time I had been trying to figure out who the woman might be. I worried that it might have been a dream trying to tell me that something was going to happen to one of you three. But I could never be sure. I wracked my brain day and night. I would always wake up just before I got to see her face.

It got to the point that I was barely sleeping anymore. I have been so damned tired lately…."

JJ and Emily nodded at each other, his posture had been giving him away lately, but they figured that maybe he'd just been having trouble with nightmares associated with the cases they had been working. Since he never said anything to anybody, they never brought it up. They all had those nightmares; it was nothing new. And they knew the kind of man that Hotch was that he would eventually talk to someone about it when he was ready.

"Well Rossi and Morgan began to grow concerned; Dave basically cornered me about it and forced me to tell him. He took me home yesterday morning and made me go back to bed. Last night after work, Morgan and Garcia came over with take-out from my favorite Vietnamese restaurant and we talked about it some more; the prevailing idea being that if I talked about it and got it out of my system, that maybe this dream would leave me alone to sleep in peace for a change."

"So, how'd that work out for you?" Reid asked genuinely curious.

"I still couldn't get this woman off of my mind. After dinner, Morgan and Garcia dozed off on the love seat in Dave's living room; I pretended to fall asleep on his sofa. Dave threw blankets over us and went to his office to get a jump on one of his latest books. Once I was sure he was comfortable in there, I jumped up and ran outside. I needed to go for a drive and clear my head a bit. There were just too many damned thoughts running through there.

As I drive, Jessica called me; she wanted to find out if she was keeping Jack for the weekend. I told her that would be a great idea, just on the off chance we caught a case or something over the next couple of days, it would save a lot of hassle of trying to get Jack ready to go…not only that but it would give him some time to spend with his cousins before school started.

During the drive it had started raining, buckets. I hung up the call with Jessica and moments later…..There she was; the woman. Just like in my dream, she darted out into the road in front of my car. And also just like in my dream, I could not see her face; my headlights were bright enough that I couldn't make out any features on her face, couldn't even have told you what hair color she had at first.

Then I got out and walked around to see if I could help her.

She looked awful. She was dirty; her hair was a wet stringy mess, her feet as I would come to notice were bleeding. The clothes that she was in were not her own. She had run from somewhere, on the one hand it couldn't be far, but on the other it was far enough that she had gotten her feet all cut up from running barefoot through the woods and God knows where else. Whatever adrenaline had been pumping through her body finally gave out because she collapsed. I caught her and put her in my vehicle and drove back to Rossi's.

Morgan called for an ambulance. Her body temperature must have been extremely low, the EMT's were having trouble getting a pulse. One of them made some sort of comment about her being one of the coldest bodies he had ever felt that still had a pulse."

"So, why are we here? What do you need us to do?" JJ asked carefully.

"Well she ran from something or someone, and it was close by. I'm going to wait on the update on her condition; then I will ask them to run DNA tests to see if they can match her identity against anyone that might be in the state missing persons files. I want to find out what she was running from and put a stop to it. And I might need the team's help."

"Just let us know what to do when the time comes. I'll deal with the press when we find out who she is and what was going on."

Hotch nodded.

"I can work up a geographical profile of the area; try to narrow down where she might have come from based on how close you were to Rossi's at the time. By the way, how far away were you?" Reid began questioning.

"I was maybe a mile from Dave's, perhaps 1 ½ miles at most. Judging by her appearance and the damage on her the soles of her feet, she had been running for a while."

"I can start with a five mile radius and see what I come up with."

"I can take him back to the office to get started…." Morgan stated.

"I can help with the search. Once he has an area established I can hunt down ownership or rentals in the area…." Penelope pitched in.

Hotch only nodded, his mind was back on the woman that had kept him awake for weeks now. He dropped into a chair, leaning forward he placed his head in his hands, falling asleep before Morgan, Garcia, and Reid had even left the waiting room. He was exhausted; the dark rings under his eyes were on the verge of rivaling Reid's.

It seemed as though he'd only been sleeping for five minutes, but it must have been considerably longer; Dave was waking him up.

"The doctor is coming out now."

Hotch snapped to his feet, swaying, a little unsteady from the effects of sleeping so hard; Dave placed a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"I'm Dr. Billings. You must be Agent Hotchner."

"Y-Yes sir."

"Is there anything that you can tell us about the Jane Doe?"

"Jane Doe?"

"Until we are able to confirm the identity of the young woman, we don't know what to call her."

"All I know is the fact that I found her in the middle of the road. I don't know her name or where she comes from. I know absolutely nothing about her." _Outside of the fact that I've dreamt about her every night for at least a month._

"Ok. As far as her condition….most all of her wounds were superficial. The main issues she has is that she was dehydrated…badly dehydrated; she's malnourished, and of course she was near to freezing when you found her. There was some bruising to the larynx; this will cause her some trouble eating or drinking for a short time, and she will likely not be able to talk until some of that clears up. We are currently in the process of getting her attached to an IV to help her be able to absorb the nutrients she needs to start getting better and putting a little weight back on; she is nearly 30lbs underweight. There were marks on her that looked as though she was burned with either a cigarette or a lighter on numerous occasions. There was a lot of heavy bruising….a cracked rib or two. Her feet had a lot of cuts and scrapes on them from having been barefoot while running for her life, a sprained left ankle. We've cleaned and treated her feet and have bandaged them up. They should heal nicely. You'll be able to see her soon if you'd like, we'll be moving her into her own room within the next hour or so."

Hotch was trying to take everything in, but his tired mind seemed to tune the doctor out sometime after he heard that her wounds were mainly superficial. As soon as he heard that woman was going to be alright he could no longer concentrate on a word the doctor said.

Rossi had no such trouble; he was quite rested in comparison to Hotch.

"Dr. may I ask…..were there signs of sexual assault?"

"As a matter of fact Agent Rossi….Yes, there were. We have collected evidence and sent the assault kit to the lab along with the clothes she came in wearing. Since we know the clothes don't belong to her, we are hoping for the best as far as collecting DNA."

Hotch's head had snapped back up from watching the floor when he heard Rossi's question. Why hadn't he thought of that? And then the doctor's answer…well damn.

The doctor turned to get back to work, Hotch collapsed back into his seat, followed closely by Rossi in the seat next to him. As tired as Hotch was, his mind had started replaying what the doctor had just told them as he continued to drink his coffee. Rossi turned to Emily and arranged for her to go out to Aaron's and pick up a change of clothes for him; Hotch's clothes might be drying out, but there was no sense in him having to stay in them and catch a cold himself. Luckily for them, Hotch's place was only a 15 minute drive from the hospital. After finishing his coffee, Hotch dozed off in the chair again while waiting for Prentiss to come back; Dave kept an eye out for a doctor or nurse to come and tell them when it would be alright to go see 'Jane Doe'.

After a 30-45 minute round trip Prentiss had arrived with a bag of clothes, tooth brush, tooth paste, and a wash cloth (in case he wanted to wash his face) for Aaron; she had packed a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, along with a zippered hoody for him to put on in case he felt chilled after having been in those wet clothes. Rossi nudged him awake and told him to go change, and that by the time he was done they would probably be allowed in to see the woman. Hotch only nodded. Now that the dream that had haunted him the past few weeks had come to pass, Hotch had begun to feel how tired he really was.

Just as Dave predicted, within moments of Aaron coming back from the restroom, a nurse stepped out to tell them that the young woman had been moved to a private room…room 2527 as a matter of fact…and that they could go see her now if they wished. Hotch nodded, and the nurse began to lead them in the direction of the room.

Upon entering the room Hotch, Rossi, and Prentiss saw the small woman lying in the bed, wrapped in several layers of blankets, hooked up to an IV. She was still unconscious, whether that was from her ordeal or the drugs that were likely given to her was anybody's guess.

The doctor knocked on the door and entered right behind the team-mates.

"We have been working to raise her body temperature to a more standard level on top of everything. We gave her a dose of pain medication mainly due to the situation with her ribs and that sprained ankle. She did come to for a brief couple of moments when we had her in the ER. She didn't say anything, likely due to the damage to her larynx, but she did try to look around a bit. She seemed to relax somewhat when she realized that she was in a hospital. I think she was looking for you sir. She did become slightly agitated when she couldn't seem to find a familiar face." With that said the doctor checked to make sure that everything was properly hooked up and that the patient was resting as comfortable as possible for the time being.

"I'm staying in here with her."

"Sir, I don't know how wise of a choice that would be."

"Dr. Billings, I don't really much care about your opinion. Until we identify her, she has no family or anyone that can look out for her. And in case you've forgotten, she was running from something or someone. Until we find out what or who that was, I don't think she should be left entirely alone. I'm staying, that's final."

"Besides Dr. Billings, you said it yourself that she became agitated when she did regain consciousness and she couldn't find him. Just imagine holy hell breaking loose when she wakes up this time and is in a strange place with strange people around her." Rossi arched an eyebrow at the doctor in defiance.

"Fine. Just don't get her stressed out any more than she will already be."

"I have no intentions of stressing her out. But I think that it would be worse for her to wake in a strange place surrounded by a roomful of people she's never met, don't you?"

"Very well. I will let nurse Mayor know to keep an eye out in case you or the patient need anything. But Agent Rossi, you will have to leave for the night. Now if you will excuse me, I must make my other rounds. I'll be back around again later to check in."

"Thank you doctor." Both Rossi and Hotch replied. Rossi watched the woman in the bed sleeping, he watched Hotch watch her. She seemed so small with that tube sticking out of her nose; and currently she was lying there in a no-nonsense hospital gown. Rossi had to wonder how long it would take Garcia to think of that and go shopping.

As if sensing Rossi's thoughts, Aaron spoke with a tired chuckle. "I wonder how long it will be before Garcia will go shopping and buy some clothes for….her to wear….or for that matter, to come in and start giving her a make-over."

"She's probably already started making plans to take a day or two off to do just that." Rossi replied.

"I'm going to go ahead and get home. Call me if you need anything at all or if anything changes with her."

"Thanks Dave."

Rossi patted Aaron on the shoulder before leaving. Aaron pulled a chair up to the side of the hospital bed so he could be close to the woman in case she woke up. He took her left hand in both of his, her finger tips were still cool to the touch but she didn't feel as completely frozen as she had before; that had to be something positive. He watched her sleeping, wondering what it was that had her run for her life the way she had. Little did he know just how much things would change over the next few days or weeks.

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**Post AN: Ok, so perhaps a strange place to end that chapter. But quite honestly I was at that point in the chapter where I wasn't sure where it was going, so better to cut it off at the knees and start with a fresh chapter than to let it go crazy.**


	6. Premonitions Chapter 6

**Premonitions Chpt 6**

**Ok, before I get on with things, I need to add the disclaimer that I don't own anything remotely related to CM at all. Just take the characters down of the shelf and make 'em dance once in a while. Now that bit of ugliness is over, we can get down to business. **

She finally felt warm. That was the first thought she could even fathom. She had a lot of aches and pains though. _Why?_ There was someone holding her hand. Again, _why?_. She was terrified to open her eyes. She couldn't think of where she might be or why she was so grateful to be warm. Had she been cold before? Why was there a stranger holding her hand? She knew her heart rate had picked up, she was starting to breathe a little more deliberately. If she could just force herself to open her eyes she could find out if she had anything to be worried about.

Almost with a start her eyes flew open. _Bad idea, bright lights everywhere!_ She closed them almost immediately and decided to try to take it slower, trying again. Ever so slowly she began to raise her eyelids millimeter by millimeter, letting her eyes adjust to the level of light that was in the room. Once they were nearly completely open she turned to see who was holding her hand.

His hair was dark. Judging by the way he was cramped in that chair next to her bed, he looked like he might be on the tall side with a lean, athletic frame maybe. His features were sharp, prominent brow ridge, nose, and sharp cheek bones. His left cheek was resting on her hand that he was holding. She could feel the warmth from where he must have been in this position for a while. She'd kill to be able to wiggle those fingers; that hand had fallen asleep a long time ago. She wanted to use her other hand to touch him, to touch his hair to make sure he was real and that she wasn't back in that….place….and that Damian and his men….

Suddenly she began to panic. The thought that those men might be looking for her….she began to wiggle her fingers, to try to pull her hand away from this stranger…but his grip was damned firm for someone that was supposed to be asleep. She kept trying to tug her hand loose. It wasn't working.

Hotch began to wake up and saw her freaking out. He stood to his full height, reaching out his free hand to the hair that had fallen in her face as she tried to get herself free of the tubes and things that kept her bed bound. She stopped, looking up at him….

_It was him!_ She had been having these damned dreams for months that a tall stranger with dark hair was talking to her; all she remembered about the dream, other than the vague description of the stranger, is that she had felt 100% safe with him. She didn't know what he said to her in the dream. She didn't remember where they were in it. She remembered nothing. All she knew was that she hadn't felt that safe with anybody since her parents died when she was 13.

Instantly she calmed down, knowing somehow, that this was that same guy. She tried to open her mouth to speak, and she couldn't make sound come out, and she became scared. She began to try harder.

Seeing her struggle, Hotch ran a hand across her forehead, telling her that she had been badly injured and was unable to speak just at the moment; he said he would step out to call the doctor to her room to check her out since she was awake now. Before he could get far from her she reached out and grabbed his arm, just above the wrist in the tightest grip she could manage. She tried one more time to speak, but still no sound or words would come out.

"Ok, I won't go anywhere. But I will push the nurses call button. We need to get your doctor in here."

The woman calmed down and nodded her head in agreement. Once the nurse had been called she came and saw that the patient (or not so patient) was awake.

"Let me run and page the doctor, he will want to give you a quick check to see how you are doing. I'll be right back with him."

While the nurse had gone to page the doctor as she had promised, Hotch looked over at the woman and noticed her staring at him.

"You probably want to know my name at least, am I close?"

She nodded.

"Aaron Hotchner. I work for the FBI."

Her eyebrows arched in some level of astonishment.

"I know, you couldn't have gotten much luckier than you did getting found by someone that works for law enforcement, much less the FBI."

She rolled her eyes a little and nodded again in agreement. But then she placed her hand on top of his, gaining his full attention.

"You remember something about what happened to you?"

Another nod.

"I can call someone from my team to take a statement." At that, the woman arched one eyebrow and slightly tilted her head to one side.

"Oh yeah. Sorry, the whole 'not able to speak' thing. How are we going to get the statements?" Hotch thought out loud.

The woman started moving her hands quickly…sign language.

"Only one person on my team really knows that much sign language….and he doesn't know enough to keep up with you I'm afraid. He's a genius, one of the fastest readers in the world probably….throw 'War & Peace' at him sometime and he can hand it back to you in like 15 minutes. But I don't know how he'd keep up with sign language, at least not at the speed of light."

The woman leaned over, ripping open one of the drawers in the cabinet beside her hospital bed. She let out a little squeak of triumph when she found what she was looking for. She tried to pull a notepad out of the drawer but it was just an inch or two out of her reach. Hotch saw her start to lean over and reach for it, nearly rolling out of the bed, until he jumped up and stopped her.

"You better be careful. You have enough problems without falling too. I'll get it." He reached into the drawer and pulled the pad out, setting it down on the tray table in front of her; next he stood and made sure to lift the railing on her bed. "No accidents."

"I see our patient is awake." The doctor announced as he entered the room. The woman leaned her head completely to the left, a sardonic look on her face that spoke volumes. If she could have found her voice, Hotch was almost certain that it would have made the words _'No Shit'_ come out.

"Well, she's awake. But, I'm not sure how patient she is."

"It's quite alright Agent Hotchner. She's probably just tired of being cooped up in the same place for so long a time. I'd have to guess she wants to get back to her own life sooner rather than later."

The woman who had long ago stopped paying attention to the conversation and managed to snag a pen that was lying on the tray table just shot a thumbs up from nowhere, causing the doctor to chuckle; she herself was too concerned with whatever she was writing to care what the doctor thought.

"Ma'am, I need to do a quick check to see how you are coming along, how well your recovery is progressing. I'm going to have Agent Hotchner step just outside the door…" the doctor said, having rested his hand on the tray table momentarily.

Suddenly, the pen came slicing through the air, being jabbed into the surface of the tray table, landing right between two fingers on the doctor's hand, narrowly missing stabbing the hand altogether.

"Or Agent Hotchner can stay…."seeing the young woman nodding her approval of the second option.

"I'm sorry doctor. She began to panic when she thought I was going to leave the room to even have you paged. I'm not sure what's going on. But, I'll stay if that's what she wants….if that will keep her calm enough to run the check on her."

"Thank you for that Agent Hotchner. After whatever happened to her, I should have thought about how she might respond to being left alone."

She scribbled another quick note and held it up, _'DUH'_, that caused Aaron to nearly laugh in spite of himself.

The doctor went through the minor diagnostic check; shining the light in her eye (which she greatly appreciated) to check her pupils, he took a look at some of the bruises, lifting her hospital gown slightly, he checked the wrappings around her ribs to see that they were still at the right tension…not too tight, but tight enough to do the work.

Finishing up the once over, 'It looks as though things are moving along just as they should. However, I will schedule a scan to be done to be more certain. We can do that tomorrow I think, a little before lunch. Then you can come back in here, have your lunch and be able to rest after that. Does that sound good to you?"

"_Would rather go home. That would sound better'_, her next note for the doctor read.

"Maybe so. But, considering all the injuries that you sustained, I want to keep you for a couple of days at least."

She grimaced, showing her disdain for that idea, but ultimately shrugged her shoulders, signaling her acquiescence.

"Alright then, I'll let the two of you get back to your conversation; in the meantime, I will schedule the scan for tomorrow. See you a little later young lady."

As the doctor walked out of the room, she got busy writing another note, holding it up for Hotch to read.

'_Conversation? Was he serious? Funny ass old man.'_

"Something tells me that I should be grateful for the peace and quiet, that if you could talk, you'd be hell on wheels."

'_You have no idea.'_ She even added an evil smiley face as a bonus.

"It's killing you isn't it?"

'_Through gloating?'_

"Alright. I will call my team and have them come here so you can tell them whatever it is that you want."

She grabbed his arm again, looking worried.

"I won't leave; I always keep my phone glued to my side."

Hotch pulled his phone out of the clip that was on his hip, flipping it open and hitting number one on speed dial.

"_JJ_."

"It's me, she's awake and she wants to ta….she has some things we need to know." Seeing the look that the woman gave him, he smirked.

"_Alright, you want me to bring the rest?"_

"Yeah, it probably wouldn't hurt for them to hear, I mean see, what she has to say. We can start brainstorming about how to catch the people who are responsible."

"_Alright, we can be there in about 15 minutes, maybe 20 at most. You want us to bring you and the woman anything to eat?"_

"Sure, I just want a sandwich. Soup for her, in case it's harder for her with the swelling and bruising in her larynx."

"_You got it. I'll have Garcia stop by the mall and grab her some clothes just in case she wants something to wear instead of the hospital gown."_

"Good idea. It might help her current demeanor a little. She's getting rather cranky."

"_Very well, see you in about 20 minutes."_

"Thanks JJ."

Hotch ended the call, 'Well, my team will be here soon. One of my people will stop by and get some clothes or pajamas for you to change into. I think everyone really wants to meet you."

'_Why? They don't know me.' _She held up the note.

"They sort of do, actually. That's sort of my fault."

'_What did you do?'_

"It's a long story. I can tell you about it later. They will be here soon enough."

'_Tell me while we wait.'_

"Really?" He saw her nod. "But to be fair, I don't know your name yet."

'_Never said I'd play fair. I'll tell you my name when everybody gets here. That way I only have to tell my story once.'_

"Alright. You win. For weeks I had been having these dreams about a woman running out in front of my car, and that I was supposed to stop and help her. I had no idea who she was or what she looked like, but I knew I was supposed to stop and help her."

'_Awww. You were dreaming of me. That's cute.'_

"That's what you got out of that?"

She wrinkled her nose at him as she sort of giggled the best she could; the sound came out a little garbled, but it was a giggle. The rest of the time they sat waiting for the rest of the team, Hotch and the woman watched a little TV, the news actually. There was a report about a young woman with dark hair going missing. Along with the news report there was a photo of the woman that they aired to aid in the description. She looked a lot like Hotch's dream woman in the hospital bed.

The hand that she placed on top of his was ice cold.

"Do you think this has anything to do with what happened to you?"

The woman drew the shape of a Y on the back of his hand and continued to spell out 'Yes', never taking her eyes off of the screen. That news report only took a few moments to get through; there weren't a lot of details yet about what happened, and if there were details to be had, the police were trying to keep them quiet until they knew more.

After they watched the news, the young woman became sort of quiet, even pensive; she started looking out of the window, thinking.

"What are you thinking about? I know that look when I see it."

Taking up her pad of paper and the pen again, _'That woman is lucky. She has people that miss her and will look for her. I don't. I have nobody that would ever miss me.'_

After showing Hotch what she wrote, she placed the pad and pen back down on the tray table and turned over on her left side, away from Hotch….but not before he saw the one big fat tear that slid slowly down her right cheek.

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**Post AN: Ok, so that is where I'm going to end that chapter. There wasn't a lot that happened in it, but it was mainly about Hotch getting to know the woman a little bit, or at least the bits of her personality that couldn't be contained. Next chapter, the team comes in to speak with her. We will FINALLY be able to name her, and learn a bit more about who she is. Reid will at least know of her through academic circles. Rossi will have ties to her somehow. And of course she will become Garcia's little pet project as far as trying to shop for her until she is able to fend for herself.**


	7. Premonitions Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**Am currently working on this update as well as the update for my story 'I'm Coming Home'. I had originally wanted to write this update first, but that one kept playing in my head; so I at least got that one mostly written now…maybe that will allow me to concentrate on this update for a little bit of time. **

**As usual, I don't own CM and/or the CM characters….play-dates, that's all.**

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JJ, Morgan, Emily, and Reid came to the hospital. They took the elevator to the designated floor and walked to the nurse's station, Morgan flashing his badge and a smile.

"We're here to meet with Agent Hotchner; there is a patient here that is under his protection."

"Yes sir, right this way. " The nurse couldn't help but drool a little bit.

Walking down the hall next to the nurse, Reid smiled, knowing what she was thinking…he'd seen the look she had given Morgan. And, he could tell she was still undressing Morgan with her eyes.

"Ma'am?" Reid said to get the nurse's attention.

"Yes…."

"I wish you luck with whatever you fantasize will happen. He's engaged. And even if he was single, you wouldn't stand a chance. His fiancée works for us as a technical analyst and she could ruin your life from the comfort of her keyboard."

"Oh really?" The nurse seemed to ask snidely.

"Yes. How would you like to try to find a job anywhere in the world when there would be no proof you were ever born in the first place? Ah, here we are. Don't you have some papers to file?"

The nurse walked away grumbling under her breath. Reid just shook his head and laughed. He couldn't blame the woman; better women than her had fallen by the wayside, she wasn't the first, and she wouldn't be the last.

The remaining team members saw Hotch in the hospital room, sitting at the bedside of a young woman who was currently turned with her back to him, curled up. They could hear her sniffling.

Hotch spoke first as soon as they entered the room, 'We have a problem. It seems as though there has been a woman to go missing and our friend here seems to think that this latest disappearance has something to do with her case. And, where are Rossi and Garcia?"

"Garcia heard about what was going on and she ran out to immediately get the woman some clothes. Rossi went along to carry the credit card." Emily said with a smirk on her face.

"I don't think Rossi is going to know what hit him. Baby Girl can shop like a professional."

Reid sort of snickered, 'Good thing he's independently wealthy."

"Well we need to start getting a statement from her as soon as possible so we can start building the profile of the UNSUB(S); if this latest girl is still alive she won't be for long. We have to assume that we have less than 48 hours or we will be picking up a body."

The young woman heard what he said, and turned back over onto her back, nodding her agreement. She knew better than anyone what sort of time restraint they were working with.

"She will have to write most of her statement down. She can't speak yet."

"Does she know sign language?" Reid asked.

"And how. She can use it if needs be, but while ago she was signing so fast I had no prayer of keeping up."

Emily spoke first, "Let's start with something simple. What is your name?"

There was furious writing taking place. _'Annalisa Di Gasperi….'_

"La Volpe?"

The young woman turned her gaze to Reid, nodding that, yes that was her nickname.

"You know this woman?" Hotch asked.

"Only by reputation. She is a professor of History at Old Dominion University; she was one of the youngest tenured professors in the country. She concentrated on Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance/Tudor era history. And she holds degrees in literature, film/art history as well. Around the academic circles they refer to her usually only as La Volpe."

"Why?" Morgan had to ask.

"La Volpe is the Italian feminine form of 'the Fox'. And as you can see, she is highly attractive…."

There was more quick writing, _'Awww, thanks."_

Reid grinned quickly before continuing, "And besides her parents were both from Italy. And, in the world of academics and education, she's one of the best looking women we have…..one of my friends referred to her as the geeked out version of Heidi Klum."

Still more writing…_'Tell your friend he is wrong. I am sooo much better."_ Then as if to put the cherry on top, she winked at Reid. Emily had to stifle a chuckle.

"Ok, what do you remember about what happened to you?" JJ was ready to move on.

There was some writing going on, not as fast as before; it was as if she was taking her time, trying to remember as much detail as she could to tell them. Her little tongue stuck out of her mouth in determination when she was writing, so the team knew that it had to be a big deal.

"_I was leaving the house and getting into my car. Someone came up behind me and put a rag over my mouth. I woke up in a run-down building. I don't know what kind, but it looked as though it had been abandoned for quite some time….except they, the men, had gotten some raggedy old used furniture to dress it up like some sort of God forsaken club house of theirs. They were always bringing different women in….most of them didn't last more than a few days. At first I couldn't understand where the women went, until one day I saw two of the men carrying out a rug that was rolled up. There was red hair sticking out of one end of it. I had only seen that girl 3 days earlier, and she was rolled up in the rug." _

"How do you think that you were able to last so long?" Emily asked.

"_The leader of the group….The others called him Damian….he wanted to keep me for himself. But the others were getting sick of it; one named Joshua most of all. He told me that killing me would be more fun for him than killing the others….."_

"Ok, well, I have some of the techs back at the office looking through the missing persons reports for the last few months. Reid and I need to get back to the office to see what they might have found out so far and keep working on the geographical profile." JJ started getting some things together.

"Wait." Reid held up his hand. "Where is your home? If we know where you were abducted from we can factor that into the profile."

Annalisa wrote down the address on a piece of paper, handing it over to him.

"Thanks. We'll be back later."

"Well for now she needs to rest some." Hotch instructed.

"_But I'm OK…."_ Annalisa wrote.

"That wasn't a request…." Hotch arched an eyebrow at her.

She wrinkled her face up in discontent; but she did relax back onto the pillows, setting the pen and pad of paper down on her lap. It was only a moment or two and the team realized that she was already fast asleep; Hotch stood and pulled the blanket up almost to her shoulders to make sure she was warm enough.

Sensing the looks that he was getting from the team, "It's just that she has had so much trouble getting warm since I found her."

"We haven't said anything at all Hotch." But Hotch could tell by the gleam in Morgan's eyes just exactly what he was thinking.

"Really? Call Rossi and let him know what's up. He may want to go out to her house with one of you to look around."

"Yep. And we'll tell Pen what room you're camped out in while we're at it." Morgan winked mischievously at Hotch as they left.

It was nearly two hours later and Rossi had brought Garcia by the hospital so she could take the bags of newly bought items up to Hotch and his mystery woman. As soon as Garcia saw her she immediately went into big sister mode; you couldn't have stopped her if you tried.

"She's damned adorable, once you look past the bruising and injuries." Garcia said quietly as soon as she saw her.

"Did any of you happen to get her name, or are we still calling her Jane Doe?" Rossi, ever the no-nonsense thinker.

"Her name is Annalisa Di Gasperi. She's a tenured University Professor at Old Dominion, in the history department. Reid has read some of her work, so he knows about her, professionally speaking at least. We have gotten her address,' Hotch handed him a copy of that. "You can meet one of them out there and go through the house and the grounds if you like. She said…..well wrote….that she had been snatched from her own driveway as she was about to leave for work one morning. So I'm thinking that it is someone that knew something about her….But then again it could just as easily be someone that had been stalking her for weeks. We'll be able to narrow it down once we find a cell phone or PDA….we will be able to look for links in the people that come in and out of her life."

"Ooh! I can help with that boss man."

"I was counting on it." Hotch looked at Rossi; he was looking at the girl in the bed. Since she had been somewhat cleaned up at the hospital, you could tell more about how she looked, etc.

"What is it Dave?"

"Nothing; it's just that something is familiar to me about this girl. I don't know what it is."

"Well, for now, go check out the house and see what you come across."

Rossi nodded and made his way out of the room; he was on his way to meet Prentiss and Reid at the woman's home. Morgan was going to help Prentiss, but when he saw how many books and things that were throughout the house, he knew this was a job for Reid.

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"This is all you pretty boy. Knock yourself out." He grinned as he left to go back to the office.

Reid was actually kind of grateful. He was at 'La Volpe's' home. He got to see her personal library, some of the artwork and films that she had collected over the years; this was like a trip to a museum for Reid. He was nearly as giddy as a school girl.

"Those must be her parents,' Emily said pointing to an 8x10 photo in a frame that was on the mantle. "Her father was handsome….and her mother was gorgeous."

"From everything I have ever read about her, they were both from Italy. I know for a fact that her father was born and raised in Venice. But I can't seem to remember where her mother was raised. They had both been university professors. But when her mother became pregnant she gave up her career to raise her daughter."

"Where are they now?"

"They died in a car accident when La Volpe was 13. She was in the car with them. After they died she was raised by an uncle….he wasn't a biological uncle; he was just another professor…someone her father had been friends with for ages. She had known him since she was an infant. I've only ever seen him referred to in dedications of some of the work that she's had published….here."

Reid held up a book that had just such a dedication, _'For my dearest Uncle Gianni, I love you so.'_

"She must have grown quite attached to him after her parents died."

"Yeah, and then he died a few years later. She was about 25 I think. She had just earned her Master's degree, and was on the verge of working towards her doctorate. If I'm not mistaken he died from heart failure."

"So your friend, La Volpe….Annalisa…is basically all alone in the world?"

"Yes. Although there are a few months, maybe as much as two years, that are unaccounted for. She seems to have dropped off the map for a while. Everything I have ever read about her…the works are all silent about this time period. It's a lot like Chaucer actually."

"Here we go. Chaucer reference…."

"No really it's almost fitting actually. But Chaucer disappeared for about six months and nobody ever figured out where he went or what he got into. They think that he based the Canterbury Tales on some of the travels that he may have undertaken at this time…and the characters may have been based on actual people that he met. There's just no way to know; if there ever was any writings…letters, etc…..about it, they are gone now.

Usually when someone drops off of the face of the earth like that it's because they have suffered some sort of personal loss. I know that this would have been around the time that her uncle died. But that is the only assumption that I can make about it. As far as what happened after she disappeared, I have no clue."

"Maybe this will help,' Emily had found a photo album.

Rossi came walking in, seeing Reid skimming the books and papers that he could find to see if there was anything that might lead to finding out who did this to the young woman.

"What's that?" Rossi asked Emily.

"Photo album. There's a ton of pictures in here. Here's one of Annalisa and her parents….it looks like it was her birthday or something."

Reid came over to Prentiss and Rossi, 'That's one of the last photographs taken of her with her parents before the fatal car accident. It was her 13th birthday. The crash happened that night as they drove home from the restaurant."

"That poor girl."

"That book…." Reid walked over to a book case and began scanning it. The book he was looking for was an old leather bound volume. The cover had a burled appearance and was sort of red or ruddy in color. There was no visible title on the spine of the book.

"Here it is…." Reid pulled the book from the shelf. It was quite heavy. Opening the cover to the first few pages, he saw that it was a book that Annalisa's father had created. He had dedicated everything in it to her.

"It seems like it is filled with stories. These must have been stories that he had told her over the years. They're basically history lessons, he would tell them to her as bedtime stories."

"No wonder she became a history professor." Emily smiled. "Here's a picture of her with her uncle _Gianni_"

Rossi's ears perked up at that name. "Let me see that." He looked closely at the picture. "Damn! I knew her name was familiar….I have seen her before. This man, her 'uncle'…This is my brother. He died nearly 20 years ago from heart failure. We were close growing up, but as adults we both had very busy lives…we were lucky to speak over the phone more than a few times a year. He told me once about adopting his friend's daughter; that the man and wife had passed away and that they had made him guardian of their daughter in their wills. Annalisa is the little girl." Rossi went into the next room and called Hotch to tell him what he had found out and to tell him that he thought that Reid and Prentiss were just about to wrap up at the house. They just had to check the old man's study first, and that would be the last room.

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Rossi went jogging up the hall into the study that had once belonged to Annalisa's father. He went through every drawer on his desk. There were still a lot of papers that had belonged to him there. The old desk calendar that had last been used by her father was still there. Rossi read some of the dates marked on it; many of the entries were written in Italian.

There wasn't a lot in the office that would tell them much of anything except for a letter that had some university logo on it for the university that the old man had taught at prior to his death. The letter mentioned something about a fellow professor that had been let go from his position at the same university. Apparently Annalisa's father had become privy to the fact that the man was having sexual encounters with some of his students and may have been the one to turn him in. Rossi took the letter and placed it in a manila that was blank on the outside and had never been sealed, it was still in its original packaging. This way there would be fewer finger prints or DNA to muddle through later.

Emily was going through a drawer that was in a table in the hall way, leading to the stairs. In that desk she was able to find some papers that pertained to the people that were hired as grounds keepers for the estate. Yes, estate. The house was enormous, it made Rossi's mansion look like government housing, and it sat on maybe five acres of land. One of the papers that had been in the folder about the hired help made mention of one of the grounds keepers that had been fired; nothing was mentioned of what it was about.

Meeting back in the living room of the house, Rossi and Emily had gotten with Reid to compare notes and decided that they had at least two people that would have had a reason to dislike Annalisa's father….he got them fired from their jobs. They would have to get Garcia to dig into their lives and see if there were any other ties to the family.

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Once Annalisa had woken up, Garcia made Hotch leave the room. Hotch had explained to Annalisa that Garcia had brought some clothes with her for the young woman to change into. When the door to the room closed behind Hotch, Annalisa had a note she wrote for Garcia, asking her how she knew what size to buy.

"Oh sweetie…JJ said that you were shorter than her and Emily; actually she said you were kind of tiny. She said that you were tiny, but that you had a hell of an hour glass figure. I ran with that. I stuck with sweat pants and t-shirt, with a hoodie; that way if they are a little too big at least there is a draw string, and you don't have to worry about them falling completely off of you. At least it'll be better than that old hospital gown."

Annalisa nodded her head in agreement.

"Come on, I'll help you get changed." Annalisa nodded again, but slowly, like she wasn't sure about whether or not she wanted a stranger to help her with this or not. Eventually common sense won out; she knew that she couldn't possibly get this done on her own. And this brightly colored strange woman was way better than this Aaron person helping her. He seemed nice. And Annalisa really wanted to believe he was. But she had just escaped from being held captive by five men that looked like nice young men by the light of day. You didn't know what they were like until you were left alone with them.

While Garcia was getting the new person dressed she tried to make small talk, never mind the fact that it was mainly one sided.

"What about your parents? I'm sure they were looking for you all of this time."

As Annalisa got settled back in her spot on the bed, she shook her head sadly, reaching for the pad of paper and her pen; she made a note for Garcia.

"_My parents were killed in a car accident on my 13__th__ birthday. The only other family I ever had lived in Italy….Venice, actually…where dad was from. But most of them are gone now….Just a few cousins I barely know scattered to all corners of the universe." _

"You poor thing; my mom and dad were killed in a drunk driving accident when I was 18. But, at least I do have 4 brothers, half-brothers actually…I mean we don't talk anymore. After our parents died, our family fell apart. But at least they are there, if any of us ever decide to repair our relationship. I can't imagine having nobody. Sometimes when I feel lonely at least I have the team. They've been great. I hope you will get to know everybody. I know we're all excited to meet you."

"_Why? I'm not that special."_

"Are you serious? Reid says you're awesome, in a geeked-out, crazy intelligent sort of way….coming from Reid, that's huge. And besides, you've been making boss man dream of you without even knowing you first. That's a big deal. He's always so stuffy."

"_Never noticed….."_ Annalisa rolled her eyes.

"But he's awesome. Our whole team is full of super-heroes. Emily is 'Wonder Woman', JJ is a lot like Dr. Jane Grey from X-Men….Reid makes me think a bit of Professor X….' Penelope giggled…"Rossi is like Superman's human father. Morgan is Captain America…"

"_Who's Aaron supposed to be?"_

"Oh, the boss is Superman of course. He doesn't necessarily stop bullets or leap tall buildings in a single bound…but he did survive being blown up once and being stabbed one time…the dirty freak stabbed him like seven times I think."

"_What does that make you on this team of heroes?"_

"I'm the brains of the outfit…well as far as the work it takes to dig through people's lives online. I can take something as mundane as credit card records and see where someone has eaten or done business over months and track where they have gone to see what sort of craziness they have gotten up to. If someone is killed, I can look up anything on the people and find out if there was ever a connection to whoever killed them."

Annalisa nodded again. Garcia could see the girl's eyes getting heavy.

"You should go to sleep and get some rest…"

Annalisa shook her head 'no'.

"I'll call Hotch back in here to sit with you if you want; I know you barely know me…."

The girl was busy writing and held up what she had.

"_I can't sleep anyways." _And she shrugged her shoulders as Garcia read it.

"Nightmares, huh? I think all of the members of our team have 'em pretty frequently, too. Some of the cases that we work can get sort of creepy and hellish. What are yours about?"

"_The things that have happened….since…."_ Garcia read the note.

"I could get Hotch to make the doctor give you something to help you sleep at least a little bit….it might be worth a try."

"_Sure…I'll try it."_ Then she wrote something else down quickly, holding it up for Garcia to see. "This shirt didn't have tags on it….Where'd it come from?"

"It's one of Hotch's FBI T-shirts that he wears when he's bummin' or out for a jog; don't worry, it is clean though. I got it out of his office before Rossi dragged me to the store." Garcia couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the look on Annalisa's face. "I wasn't sure what size top to get you, based on what description that JJ was giving me, I didn't want to get one that was too small."

"_Well at least that makes sense." _

Garcia fought grinning. Annalisa was cute as hell in Hotch's shirt; the excuse she gave the girl was only half true. The other half was that she was going to do whatever she had to do to play matchmaker.

Hotch was an awesome man; always so kind to everyone that he knew, honest to a fault sometimes, good at his job….the only people that had any reason to hate or fear him were UNSUBS…and they had better run and hide.

And Garcia didn't know a lot about this woman yet; however with the aid of her 'babies' it wouldn't take long to brush up on her. But she knew the woman was basically alone in the world with no family. She might have a few friends, people she worked with, but so far nobody knew anything about them. The local L.E.O.s had been alerted that this woman had been found. And if one of her colleagues had reported her missing in the first place, it's likely that the cops or a detective would have notified them. Where were her friends now?

No matter, Penelope Garcia was playing matchmaker. And if she had her way neither one of them, Hotch or the young woman he found, would ever have to worry about being alone again.

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**Post AN: I decided that was a decent place to wrap up that chapter, so I can figure out what to do next. Hope it was enough to make up for having to wait so long. **


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